


holding on

by silverscream



Category: Uprooted - Naomi Novik
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Sarkan is dumb women are done with him, implied Kasia/Alosha, lots of people show up ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 22:26:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17211983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverscream/pseuds/silverscream
Summary: Sarkan through the time-skip at the end of the book. an old reptile looking for purpose.





	holding on

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StellaGibs0n](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StellaGibs0n/gifts).



When all is said and done, Sarkan returns to Kralia.

He is not running away, mind you - there are many things that need doing in Polnya's ruin of a capital. The blood is not yet dry in the streets, the deaths of half the kingdom's old nobility and royal family hanging over the city, like some poisoned cloud.

Armies wasted and a grim future laying in wait, Kralia picks itself up the only way it can - a mix of guildsmen, nobles and sorcerers stand up as an impromptu council, rebuilding from the ground up.

It's been years since Sarkan took part in something of the sort, and he has not missed it. However, weeding out the last threads of the Wood's corruption is something that gives him purpose. It distracts and keeps him busy, so that there is no time left to remind himself: his tower gone, his home for well over a century turned to rubble, his work and library amounting to nothing at all.

It does not do to think about that, so Sarkan counts and orders until his eyes bleed - and if his dreams are dark and laughing, a hand tangled in a sea of hair, a cold nose against his neck and that damned laughter echoing in his ears, then that is his problem alone, and either way, he does not sleep enough for it to count.

There is, after all, nothing left for him in the Valley.

(A lie.)

  
.  
.  
.

  
The brine on the breeze stings his eyes before he can even see the sea.

It's no wonder that even the Wood could not stand this air, he thinks, when setting eyes on the bustling port-town-turned-royal-seat. After weeks on the road, the promise of a decent bed is just enough to make him walk through the gates, and stand the smell of salt and fish.

(what scents does he miss? _grass and the earth beneath, warmth and sunlight_ , and he is fiercely stupid for it)

The clean warmth of his library, paper and herbs and the twinge of magic always in the air - those he allows himself to miss, even if it's just as foolish.

In the height of summer, Sarkan finds himself meeting the royal heir, a boy barely taller than Sarkan's chest, yet all the sharper for it, so much that his brows climb closer to his hairline with each exchange.

It's the Sword's mark, cutting straight to the bone, with no love for subterfuge and even less patience for it, which Sarkan finds refreshing - there is purpose here. There is the hope of a future for Polnya in the child and his court.

"What are you staring at?"

The voice startles him out of his reverie, Sarkan realises with a twinge of annoyance. He'd stopped on a rampart, listening to the sea, on his way to the rooms given to him - one of the towers on the other side of the palace, a show of both respect and mistrust all in one.

Alosha finds him there, and he curses himself for loitering.

"Admiring the view," he answers pointedly, glaring half-heartedly.

The Sword is aged, subtly, but unmistakably. The creases in her dark skin somewhat deeper, a weight on her shoulders more poignant than he remembered.

"The Wood let you go for long enough to visit here?" she asks, almost teasingly, the slightest measure of warmth in her voice something he had not expected.

Suddenly, a whiff of something painfully _familiar_ passes him by, meadows and trees and fresh grain, and Sarkan feels adrift, lost, the valley spreading as far as his eyes could see (- _impish laughter in his ear, arms around him_ )

He blinks the vision away, it's gone as quickly as it came, though it's left him shaken. Alosha's only response is a raised brow, as if she were continuously reminded of his incompetence, but also - fondly?

Sarkan scans her, for he is certain something of hers triggered his reaction, a charm, a spell, something, something of the Wood's.

There is something golden wrapped around her wrist, he sees now - a braided band of gleaming hair, as precious as gold, with how she carries it.

"Something like that," he answers, hoping she did not notice him staring.

"And when will you answer her summons and return?" she asks, eyes gleaming, a shrewd curl to that hard mouth.

Sarkan should have expected something of the sort. _Meddler_. Still, there was a longing rooted somewhere behind his heart, a willful, ridiculous thing that rose at the Sword's words, even as he tried to will it gone.

The Wood - and it was an enemy for the ages, his enemy, whom he had sworn to defeat, and had done so. And yet.

Stupidly, oafishly, it's not the dead he remembers now, nor the curses, nor the village heads summoning him in dread - it's the quiet mornings in his tower, the tinkering with spells, the warm solitude.

( _that's a lie, too_ \- there's also a throaty voice humming, childish cantrips muttered under her breath, there is the night she woke him in his bed, her wild hair and bright eyes and Sarkan is too old for this sort of silly pining)

The sea air is stifling all of a sudden, and Alosha's grin spells trouble for him, and his reputation, whatever is left of it, and as he turns on his heels to leave, the Sword's laughing voice follows him.

  
" _Pass the little witch my regards, will you_?"

 

.  
.  
.

 

A moon's turn later, Sarkan's belongings, old and newly acquired, are packed in a cart, having resisted the temptation to send them ahead with a spell. He does not, after all, know yet what his destination is.

(yet another lie)

  
It's just the hour before dawn, the sky grey and hooded, when a lone sentinel finds him at the gates.

Tall and foreboding, and and entirely otherworldly, Kasia smiles at him, her wood-carved face strangely warm. The Wood in human flesh, the little prince's own sworn sword.

"Onwards already?"

Sarkan nods.

He is unnerved by her, has been in all his audiences with the prince and his council, feeling Kasia's eyes piercing on the back of his neck, as if she were trying to figure out the answer to some riddle and he were part of the solution.

The whole spectrum of her glares was something to behold, intimidating in both silken skirts, and masterfully carved armor, the latter undoubtedly the Sword's gift, the metalwork as ethereal as the girl's eyes with the old Wood whispering in them.

Yet it was not disdain she reserved for him, not even right after his arrival, and not now, when Sarkan is prepared to leave.

Kasia considers him, and he feels oddly like a child caught stealing sweets, amusement tinkling in her eyes (- similar, but not quite like _hers_ , hers were brightly annoyed and bright with laughter, too, at his expense usually, which was both irritating and oddly pleasing)

No doubt she can tell he is rumpled and unkept, because Sarkan feels it keenly. He has not slept well in weeks (months), his cloak hangs on bleakly, magic thrumming at his fingertips like static.

Whatever it is she finds, it seems to please her, by the curl of her smile, cutting and eerily familiar.

(she and the Sword have been spending too much time together, the meddling women)

Reaching for her pocket, Kasia hands him a little package, and his heart gives a painful twist, because of course -

"Give Nieschka my love when you see her, will you?"

And she leaves, in flurry of skirts, that knowing smile etched into his memory and the small, leather-bound package heavy in his hand.

A shudder goes through him, followed by a measure of deprecation. With that, he climbs in the seat of his cart, and urges the horse forward into the dawn.

  
.  
.  
.

  
The night carries the scent of sweet wine and burned wood, of freshly-gathered barley and ripe fruit.

The valley is alright with fires, villagers already half-drunk before sunset, fiddles strung and voices laughing as Sarkan makes his way between the houses, his heart in his throat. In spite of his better judgement, he is nearly shaking with nerves and his palms are clammy.

A cool wind makes the hair on the back of his neck stand, turning his skin to gooseflesh, autumn heralded softly with a slow thrum of magic flowing through his veins. Warmth fills him, makes his chest seem not enough to contain it.

  
_Idiot_.

  
Agnieszka sat at the foot of a chair in the clearing in Dvernik, firelight turning her hair a hundred shades of brown, tangled and curled, dancing shadows playing games around her.

The headswoman speaks up, and a hundred heads turn his way, hers included. The girl's dark eyes turn wide, unmindful of the hair falling in them, and Sarkan fights the absolutely ludicrous urge to brush it out of her face, with just the touch of a breeze.

At her side, there's a basket full of golden fruit, sickeningly sweet like the Wood, and as she speaks, as cheerful and obstinate and loud as he remembers, he sees it in her, the golden sheen of magic when she blinks, her lashes dark against a sun tanned cheek, fingers fiddling with a grass-stained skirt - a play of light, a murmur that follows her.

The witch, impossible and improbable, carries him around through the night, her hand warm around his. An older woman with the same laughing eyes - her mother - looks at him, disconcertingly knowing, waiting to be introduced. He faces her, then Agnieszka's merry band of brothers, a barrel-chested lot, like their father.

She twirls him around after that, her quick feet bare and her laughter infectious, utterly beside the music. The fiddlers are as drunk as can be, which is not much different from the rest of them, so nobody minds it overly much, their songs wild and happy.

Sarkan lets the sound carry him without complaining much, his chest light and fingers itching to grab Agnieszka's waist, to wrap in her skirts and pull her close, to tangle in her hair _and_ -

 _Not here_ , not under the gaze of her whole village, where he feels like the collar of his doublet is too tight to breathe through, and his tongue feels like lead in his mouth.

They leave halfway through a song, the entire village caught in a reel around the big fire. Stumbling between the cottages and into the open field with the Wood on the horizon, Agnieszka's dark eyes swallow him whole, and he feels naked before her. That has less to do with the fact that she stole his coat and is skipping steps and twirling around in it, the garment oddly wrong on her, all the ornaments he holds dear an ill fit to her laughter and dusty feet, her toes digging in the dirt and the grass - and more so with how _knowingly_ she looks at him, like she could strip him bare and read all his secrets into his skin.

(she already has.)

**Author's Note:**

> hopefully this is in-character, trying to capture Sarkan's voice was a bit tough, but very fun, and I hope I did him justice (Nieschka, Kasia and Alosha, too, although this one is centered on the dumb lizard) 
> 
> (ngl, I kinda want to expand this haha)


End file.
